Operation Pillar of Defense may be the first war in which social media has become a virtual military battlefield, as Israelis and Palestinians engage in direct contact with the public through social media like Twitter and Facebook, reports Allison Hoffman of Tablet. “We’re at a moment where this stuff is not only the way a lot of these communications happen, but the audience is primed for it,” said Sree Sreenivasan, a professor of social media at Columbia’s School of Journalism. “There’s no point saying they shouldn’t be doing it because no one is going to listen,” he said. “Both sides are going to do whatever is in their self-interest. And social media is an example of that.”